Crimson Desert Comes Alive When You Ignore the Main Quest and Climb the Nearest Tower - IGN

Scrambling up to a platform high above Trembling Gorge cost me time, stamina, and – when I mistimed my magical grappling hook – a big chunk of health. But it was worth it for the incredible panorama view of Hernand's eastern undulations. Towards the southern coast, a stout fortress lurks behind a meandering line of spikes – a stone spire stabs skywards to the right, and from it a track tumbles down the hillside, spilling between gaps in the rock. North is a circular city squatting on a high plain, and beyond, faraway red hills, nearly flat-topped like mesas, an impossible spindly structure jutting from one peak. Crimson Desert's world looks its best when it stretches beneath you, your eyes following natural paths between three, four, five waypoints without ever consulting your map. What I've found at those waypoints has often been limp quests – something we criticised in our review – or empty streets, but developer Pearl Abyss has done a few things especially well to encourage exploration from on high, and I still feel compelled to conquer every peak. Its landscape is vivid and, to use an unsexy term, legible. Its spires shine against the blue sky, some glowing with an other-worldl